Economic Illiterates

The economic illiteracy that is the democrat campaign for president came to Alaska a few weeks ago. The most clueless candidate, former drifter and now US Senator Bernie Sanders won the caucus over the Dowager Countess of Chappaqua, one Hillary Clinton. Sanders promised a national minimum wage of $15/hour, free college education and do his level best to kill off yet more resource development jobs here in Alaska.

Great, just what we need, another clown sitting 5,000 miles away dictating who works, who doesn’t and what they get paid for here in Alaska.

A short analysis of Sanders’ promises is in order if for no other reason than to understand the enormity of his lack of basic economic knowledge. But this is the sort of magical thinking that you get out of self-professed socialists.

Up first is the $15 / hour minimum wage.

Seattle jacked up their minimum wage from $9.32 to $15 / hour about 10 months ago. Since then, employment has fallen by more than 11,000. The number of unemployed has risen by nearly 5,000. The city’s jobless rate has increased by a full 1%. But at least the democrats in charge of Seattle got to pander to their union supporters. https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/02/20/seattle-worst-job-losses-since-r...

Who gets hurt here? Minimum wage hikes are heat seeking missiles aimed squarely at new people in the workplace – the young, the uneducated, the poor, and those who have not yet learned basic job skills (showing up on time, being properly dressed, being ready to learn, follow directions, showing up sober, for example), and the small businesses that hire them.

Unions love the minimum wage because it keeps competition by new, young people for their jobs tamped down. A number of their contracts are tied to the minimum wage, so when it increases so do union wages. The democrat party likes the minimum wage because the more people not working, eating the government cheese, the more targets for campaigns threatening them on a regular basis that the freebies will all disappear if they don’t vote for democrats. And vote for freebies they will, early and often.

Next is free college education.

The democrat congress with Bernie Sanders vote nationalized the college loan industry as part of the passage of ObamaCare in March 2010. Part of the legislation was a provision that does not allow anyone with a student loan to declare bankruptcy to discharge the debt. Essentially, the democrats have turned a college loan and its repayment into a vehicle that puts students with college loans into indentured servitude – slavery – for our children. They graduate to a crappy economy with few jobs and a few hundred thousands of dollars of outstanding debt to repay. They enter life not on an even playing field, but a few hundred thousand dollars behind the starting line. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/08/25/the-student-loan-bubble...

Now that they have officially been welcomed to the democrat plantation, they will be treated to endless promises by democrat candidates to waive, remove, or execute some other magical act to make that debt go away. And like the inner city single black mothers over the last half century, they will vote for democrats who promise to relieve that crushing debt election after election after election.

Final form of illiteracy is shutting down resource development.

Sanders’ wife was supposed to go to Dillingham and meet with regional tribal leaders. The visit was cancelled and replaced with a discussion with the United Tribes of Bristol Bay about the horrors of mining and the environmental disaster that would be the Pebble Mine. Somehow nobody in the meeting seemed to be worried about the Donlin Creek Mine the next watershed to the west or Bristol Bay Native Corporation’s mining activity on the Alaska Peninsula. Perhaps because they are being done by natives they are somehow more environmentally friendly than Pebble. I doubt it, though.

Economic illiteracy is at the heart of the democrat campaign for office at every level. They show up like so many Johnny Appleseeds, sowing sweetness, light, and free stuff. Their voters eat that stuff right on up, never realizing that by electing liberals they are actively destroying their opportunity for a prosperous future for themselves and their families.

About the Author

Alex Gimarc has been writing Interesting Items online since 1997. He lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military. His expertise is primarily science and technology, environmental issues, energy issues, economics, and military affairs. His weekly column, Interesting Items is a summary of news stories, with about a third of the content being Alaska-themed topics